ted paulson

The New Social Engagement: A Visit to Zappos

Most Mashable readers have probably heard of the online retail company, Zappos. You may have learned of them via Twitter (Twitter) and count yourself among the 400,000+ people that follow the CEO, Tony Hsieh (pronounced Shay but who people refer to as Tony), or from a friend after she had one of the best customer experiences in her life.

No matter how you heard of them, we wager to guess that you did so through word-of-mouth. And word about Zappos has been spreading. . . . They did $3 million dollars in gross sales the day before our recent visit, and surpassed $1 billion last year. They are one of the companies forging a new era of business that emphasizes, in their words, “making personal and emotional connections.”

We visited Zappos recently, initially planning to have an hour with Tony and ended up spending the entire afternoon there interviewing not only Tony, but the in-house coach, the help desk coordinator, and many others. Once in the Zappos universe, we wanted to know, “What are they doing that is working? Why do they have a brand that is so well respected?” And, “Why does it feel so damn good to hang out with these people?”

Below are some of the lessons we gleaned from our time there. (via Mashable April 26th, 2009 | by Soren Gordhamer)

Brand 2.0

Many brands still try controlling their community via “I have a message and I want to deliver my message to my target group”, this is nothing else than having a monologue. No wonder that big brands try to push their attitude onto digital marketing. Sure, in some cases it still works, but only in some!

What does it mean having a conversation with my community. Actually nothing else than ‚to talk “with” them rather than “to” them. What is on my mind, what do you have on yours. A recommendation, something to agree or disagree on, share exiting moments, go shopping etc.

Brands need empathy!

We need to move away from finding an excuse to say things to people and start to identify something we can do for them. Brands have to leave their ivory tower and open the door.

Give digital branding the right place in our communication. Build an emotional connection between your brand and your customer. Create a community of people that can then further talk about your brands. Engage your consumer in a branded content and branded experience.

The social web is free to express ‘what, when and how I want!’. Do your business in a new way!